Murdered woman's family delivers appeal flyers

The family of a Napier homicide victim are delivering flyers to houses today, hoping to get more information from the public about the murder of their loved one.

The body of Chattrice Maihi-Carroll, a 46-year-old mother-of-four, was found by family members in her Cottrell Crescent home in suburban Onekawa on January 21.

She lived alone, was stabbed many times, and may also have been sexually assaulted.

Her family were today delivering 500 flyers, created in consultation with the police, to houses in the immediate vicinity of her flat.

Investigation head Detective Inspector Sam Aberahama said the family were to be commended for taking the initiative.

"This is something the family thought they could do to help the police investigation and we have been working closely together on the content of the flyer," he said.

"The aim is to prompt people to think carefully about events during the weekend of January 19-21 and to jog some memories.

"We hope that someone will remember something of significance that they saw during that weekend that will help us with the inquiry."

The flyer contains a personal plea from the family to provide information that may be useful to police. There is also a picture of Ms Maihi-Carroll and a reference to the Police 10-7 TV programme on which her murder will feature this week.

Mr Aberahama said police were nearing the end of their inquiries into sightings of a green Toyota Estima people mover and a cyclist with blood on his face and chest, who was seen near Ms Maihi-Carroll's house the day she was found dead.

There had been no other sightings of the cyclist, but several people had put forward names of others they thought it might be.

Police were yet to find the owner of the Estima, which had been seen parked at the top of the driveway leading to Ms Maihi-Carroll's flat on the night of Sunday, January 20.

A team of 35 police were working on the inquiry team.

- NZPA